Plaintiff Larry A. Hausam was seriously injured when he fell 16 feet from a scaffold while employed in the construction of the Carson Pirie Scott & Company store at Northwoods Shopping Center mall in Peoria, Illinois. On October 22, 1972, at the time plaintiff was injured, he was pushing a wheelbarrow of wet concrete along the scaffold to a columnar form in the process of constructing second floor columns in the building. As he neared the end of the scaffold, he and the wheelbarrow broke through the railing, and he fell to the floor below, landing with the wheelbarrow and wet concrete on top of him. The scaffold was constructed of tubular steel, but instead of having two railings of 2 x 4 boards and a toeboard, as required by the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) regulations, the section of scaffold where the accident occurred had only a 2 x 2 board as a single hand rail.

Plaintiff filed suit against, inter alia, defendant Victor Gruen & Associates, the architect employed by the owner to plan and design the Northwoods store, asserting a cause of action under the Structural Work Act (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1971, ch. 48, par. 60, et seq.). At the conclusion of the trial of this cause in the Circuit Court of Peoria County, the jury returned a verdict in favor of plaintiff in the sum of $75,000, and the court entered judgment accordingly. Plaintiff appeals upon the ground that the verdict was insufficient, and defendant cross-appeals upon the ground that, as a matter of law, no liability should attach to the architect in this case.

 1 Because of the view we take of this appeal, the determinative issue is whether defendant was in charge of the construction within the meaning of section 9 of the Structural Work Act, which imposes liability upon "[a]ny owner, contractor, sub-contractor, foreman or other person having charge of the erection, construction, repairing, alteration, removal or painting of any building * * *" for any injury caused by a wilful violation of the Act. (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1979, ch. 48, par. 69.) In resolving this issue, we are mindful that the question of who has charge of construction is usually a question of fact for the jury, and a verdict in favor of plaintiff can be reversed only if the evidence, when viewed most favorably to the plaintiff, nevertheless so overwhelmingly favors the defendant that no contrary verdict could stand. See Norton v. Wilbur Waggoner Equipment Rental & Excavating Co. (1979), 76 Ill.2d 481, 394 N.E.2d 403; Pedrick v. Peoria & Eastern R.R. Co. (1967), 37 Ill.2d 494, 229 N.E.2d 504.

The test of whether a party is in charge of the work involves an assessment of the totality of the circumstances in each case. (Norton.) In the recent case of Westerfield v. Arjack Co. (1979), 78 Ill. App.3d 137, 397 N.E.2d 451, the court identified a number of factors which should be considered in determining whether the totality of the circumstances establishes that a party had charge of the work: (1) actual supervision and control of the work; (2) retention of the right to supervise and control; (3) constant participation in ongoing activities at the construction site; (4) supervision and coordination of subcontractors; (5) responsibility for taking safety precautions at the job site; (6) authority to issue change orders; (7) the right to stop the work.

The breadth of the doctrine of "having charge of," as interpreted by the Illinois courts>, was discussed in Alfano v. Board of Trade (1979), 76 Ill. App.3d 248, 251, 395 N.E.2d 384, 386, as follows:

"Recently, in Norton, the Illinois Supreme Court emphasized the expansiveness of the concept of having charge of the work. There, the court noted that even in the absence of evidence of retention of supervision or control over the work, a party with a general familiarity with construction methods, specific knowledge of the problem in question, some control over some of the work at the jobsite and in the position to have knowledge of `some deviation' in the work and the ability to alleviate it either at his own direction or through another could be one `having charge of' an alteration for purposes of liability under the Act."

Norton and several subsequent cases which imposed liability under this expansive concept were cases where the defendant was the owner of the construction project. (E.g., Kirk v. Walter E. Deuchler Association, Inc. (1979), 79 Ill. App.3d 416, 398 N.E.2d 603; Molloy v. Santucci Construction Co. (1979), 78 Ill. App.3d 249, 397 N.E.2d 125; Mosley v. Northwestern Steel & Wire Co. (1979), 76 Ill. App.3d 710, 394 N.E.2d 1230; Kjellesvik v. Commonwealth Edison Co. (1979), 73 Ill. App.3d 773, 392 N.E.2d 116.) While architects, as such, are not named in the statute, in many cases the architect has been found to be an "other person having charge of" construction within the meaning of the Act, and the same principles apply to that determination as apply to owners and contractors.

The supreme court's most recent consideration of an architect's liability under the Structural Work Act was in Emberton v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. (1978), 71 Ill.2d 111, 373 N.E.2d 1348, where the architect had a full-time project representative who made frequent inspections of the work, who attended weekly progress and coordination meetings, who called the contractor's attention to unsafe conditions, and who gave directions as to the methods for doing certain work. In addition, the architect had express authority under its contract "to stop the Work whenever in his reasonable opinion it may be necessary for the proper performance of the Contract."

"While it may be conceded that some of the decisions in this jurisdiction involving the Scaffold Act appear to have equated `having charge' with `supervision and control' in varying degrees, it is our opinion the language of the statute, and the legislative intent it reflects, do not permit the conclusion that the terms are the inflexible and unbending legal equivalent of the other. The term `having charge of' is a generic term of broad import, and although it may include supervision and control, it is not confined to it. As was said of the word `charge' in People v. Gould, 345 Ill. 288, 323: `The word does not necessarily include custody, control or restraint, and its meaning must be determined by the associations and circumstances surrounding its use. "To have charge of" does not necessarily imply more than to care for or to have the care of.' Thus, while the actual exercise of supervision and control over the work and the persons doing it, or the retention of the right to so supervise and control, may be factors bearing on the ultimate factual question of whether an owner is `in charge,' they are not necessary or conclusive factors, nor is either made a sine qua non for liability under the statute. Rather, consistent with its beneficent purpose of preventing injury to persons employed in the extrahazardous occupation of structural work, the thrust of the statute is not confined to those who perform, or supervise, or control, or who retain the right to supervise and control, the actual work from which the injury arises, but, to insure maximum protection, is made to extend to owners and others who have charge of the erection or alteration of any building or structure." 33 Ill.2d 316, 321-22, 211 N.E.2d 247, 251.

As we understand Larson and Emberton, the statute extends liability to those having some responsibility and opportunity to prevent dangerous work methods at the construction site in general, without regard to their having a direct supervisory connection with the particular task which gave rise to the injury.

One of the important considerations in cases involving architects is the extent of the architect's authority to "stop work" under the contract. In Emberton, the architect could stop the work when necessary for the proper performance of the contract. This language was held to confer a right to stop work because of safety hazards, thereby making the architect a person having charge of the work within the meaning of the Act. See Miller v. DeWitt (1967), 37 Ill.2d 273, 226 N.E.2d 630.

In Fruzyna v. Walter C. Carlson Associates, Inc. (1979), 78 Ill. App.3d 1050, 398 N.E.2d 60, the court considered the "stop work" factor in a case where the contract authorized the architect to reject work which did not conform to the contract documents but gave the right to stop work only to the owner. The court held that the right to stop work and the power to reject nonconforming work are not the same thing. "[T]his court may not infer the right to stop work from the right to reject work. The authority to stop work must be clear and not assumed." (78 Ill. App.3d 1050, 1058, 398 N.E.2d 60, 66.) Although the architect in Fruzyna had a contractual duty to administer the contract, to prepare change orders, and to reject work, and even though he made weekly visits to the site and attended progress meetings, he was held not to ...

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